Positive signs at DCS amid disarray

Feb. 12, 2013

OUR VIEW

Watching the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services evolve into a publicly accountable government agency is not unlike watching a toddler taking its first uncertain steps.

First a step forward, then a step back, a sway to the side, then a stumble and then more steps forward.

Even as DCS officials are preparing judge-ordered copies of files relating to more than 200 child deaths and near-deaths, another set of documents from the department’s Child Fatality Review Team that was prepared for media organizations had major deletions of public information.

These improperly redacted documents were released by DCS on Jan. 11, prior to the judge’s ruling in a lawsuit filed by The Tennessean and other media organizations.

The department’s admission that it improperly redacted records involved Child Fatality Review Team documents. Because the deletions were made on computer, media groups were unable to determine any changes had been made. It was only later that DCS spokeswoman Molly Sudderth explained that portions had been improperly deleted, and that an internal review was being conducted to determine who did it. The deleted portions have since been restored.

To its credit, the department through spokeswoman Sudderth has notified media organizations of what happened. Still, it does not bode well for the smooth eventual release of records under the court’s order. Deleted material, for example, included numerous prior child abuse allegations involving a family and the dates that incidents occurred. That information is not confidential. And the names of DCS staff members involved in the investigations and reviews were deleted, as well.

However, this new development shows cracks in the government’s argument against providing records to media, child advocates, and thereby to the public.

We now know that computer records exist of least some DCS fatality records. It is on computer that deletions were made to the Jan. 11 records. DCS said last week that child fatality records sought under the lawsuit must physically be collected from county offices throughout the state; transported to Nashville; printed out to make redactions of confidential information; and driven to the county offices in a short period of time. All at a cost of more than $55,000 that even the interim DCS commissioner thinks is inflated.

It gets worse, though: The Tennessean learned on Tuesday that DCS’ own policies direct investigators to send entire files on investigations via express mail — they do not have to be hand-delivered, as the state told Chancellor Carol McCoy.

Whether lawyers for DCS and department officials wanted to punish and embarrass media organizations, or someone at DCS was buying time before third parties had access to records that showed problems with DCS workers or administrators, the fabric of lies has only grown longer.

We see positive signs amid the bad at DCS — new leadership, the beginnings of a fatality review process with oversight — but the agency cannot crawl its way out of this mess. It must stand for the children that depend on it — and tell the truth.